Exotic Flowers In Bloom-a photo essay in relation to quotes of famous authors.

When in bloom, flowers are favorite subject for artists,photographers and inspiration for poets,writer and philosophers.

Flowers are not just admired for their enthralling beauty, they have the power to bind humans in a universal bond that in spite of being wordless, can articulate the most Flowers have traditionally held symbolic meanings in many cultures around the world.

Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Their beauty, fragility and delicate exuberance has always been a topic if poems and songs. It is difficult not to be captivated by their charm and subtle mesmerism as they gently sway in the breeze or adorn the windowsill of a delightful cottage in a quaint, sleepy hamlet.

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.

Whether neatly arranged in well tended gardens of stately homes, expertly arranged in a delicate vase or unexpectedly blossoming beside rivers and pathways winding through the woods, have the inexplicable quality of expressing the uniquely human feature -emotions.

And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to be touched by the thorns.

Flowers don’t require words, rather they have the ability to express emotions even where words fail us. Whether it is the joy and anticipation of passionate love, the sensational pleasure of a new beginning, the bliss of parenthood, the ecstasy of companionship or the wrenching sorrow of separation from a loved one, flowers can express all.

One rose says more than the dozen. Wendy Craig

If one’s mind is absorbed in something other than one’s surroundings, and then seen, one of the typical attractions of flowers is the fact that they seem an unwarranted development of beauty. In almost every other series of events and happening in nature, the beautiful is only incidental to the useful; but flowers have the objectless, produced without being planted or without human labor, they are the sumptuous environment of occurrence that belongs to human beings.

Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out values all the utilities of the world. Ralph Wal

They represent in typical fashion, the most revealing and the gracious, wholesome purpose of the universe; and by giving pleasure through the senses the instinct of beauty, justifying the poetry of life with a divine consideration.

Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature. Gerard De Nerva

They bound the sacrificial victim of the ancients, strung into garlands for the champion, trembled in the hair of the bride, and cheered solitude. They have been offered at the shrines, and declared as the pledges of love or be scattered over the grave.

Quotations for inspiration

Many famous poets,authors,philosophers and thinkers have used flowers and their beauty and existence in their writing extensively.Few of the famous quotes are presented here along with the example of flowers in their bloom.

Rose, the king of flowers

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The winter’s Tale (4.4.133-50),William Shakespeare

. Now, my fair'st friend, I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might Become your time of day; and yours, and yours, That wear upon your virgin branches yet Your maidenheads growing: O Proserpina, For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall From Dis's waggon! daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bight Phoebus in his strength--a malady Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds, The flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack, To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend, To strew him o'er and o'er!The winter’s Tale (4.4.133-50)

King John (4.2.11-17) ,William Shakespeare

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

The winter’s Tale (4.4.92-9)William Shakespeare

Sir, the year growing ancient, Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the season Are our carnations and streak'd gillyvors, Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not To get slips of them.

King John (4.2.11-17) William Shakespeare

To guard a title that was rich before, To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

Trapped beauty

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Crimson beauty | Source

Ballerina | Source

Violet delight | Source

Red attire | Source

Oink&white | Source

Mauve surprise | Source

Dancing white | Source

Sonnet 98

Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue Could make me any summer's story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew; Nor did I wonder at the lily's white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

The actual flower is the plant's highest fulfillment, and are nothere exclusively for herbaria, county floras and plantgeography: they are here first of all for delight. - John Ruskin

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:Out of a misty dreamOur path emerges for a while, then closesWithin a dream.- Ernest Dowson, 1867 – 1900

Spring salute

Get growing | Source

Love Blooms Here | Source

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous." ~ Aristotle | Source

- Father George Schoener (1864 -1941), The Importance and Fundamental Principles of Plant Breeding

Who can estimate the elevating and refining influences and moral value of flowers with all their graceful forms, bewitching shades and combinations of colors and exquisitely varied perfumes? These silent influences are unconsciously felt even by those who do not appreciate them consciously and thus with better and still better fruits, nuts, grains, vegetables and flowers, will the earth be transformed, man's thought refined, and turned from the base destructive forces into nobler production. One which will lift him to high planes of action toward the happy day when the Creator of all this beautiful work is more acknowledged and loved, and where man shall offer his brother man, not bullets and bayonets, but richer grains, better fruit and fairer flowers from the bounty of this earth.